Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Judge Susan Crawford’s victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race today a “decisive message” to Trump and Elon Musk.
“Anyone who counted Democrats out was dead wrong. Wisconsin voters tonight sent a decisive message to Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and DOGE by rejecting an extreme Republican for their Supreme Court: our Democracy is not for sale,” Schumer said in a statement.
Though the election was technically nonpartisan, Crawford, who was backed by Democrats, defeated Brad Schimel. Musk spent millions of dollars in support of Schimel.
The election was the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history.
Susan Crawford has won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, NBC News projects, allowing liberals to maintain their narrow majority on the battleground state’s highest court — and defying Elon Musk after he spent millions of dollars to oppose her.
Crawford, a Dane County circuit judge who was backed by Democrats, secured a 10-year term on the court over Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County circuit judge and a former Republican attorney general. As the first major battleground state election of Trump’s second term, the technically nonpartisan contest drew national attention and became the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history.
The outcome is a setback for Trump and Musk, his billionaire adviser. Trump endorsed Schimel in the final stretch of the race, while Musk injected himself into the center of it, spending huge sums of money, visiting Wisconsin days out from Election Day and frequently posting about the race on his X feed. In turn, Democrats and progressive groups made Musk their primary villain, attacking his influence on the race and his efforts to slash federal jobs and the government through the Department of Government Efficiency.
As NBC News projects victory for liberal judge Susan Crawford in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court case, the results in counties with most of the vote in show why: She is running well ahead of Kamala Harris’ vote shares in the state, which Harris narrowly lost.
In Fond du Lac County, conservative judge Brad Schimel holds the lead with about 60% to Crawford’s 40%. Trump carried the county in November with 64%, while Harris got 35%.
And looking to La Crosse County, Crawford leads with 64% to Schimel’s 36%. In 2024, Harris took the county with 54%, while Trump had 45%.
Wisconsin voters today approved a proposed amendment to enshrine an existing voter ID law in the state Constitution, NBC News projects.
The measure will add language to the state Constitution identical to a 2011 law requiring voters to provide photo ID when they vote or when they are requesting absentee ballots.
Conservatives have said they sought to enshrine it in the state Constitution because doing so would make it far more difficult to strike it down if a liberal-majority state Supreme Court were to invalidate it with a ruling. However, strategists in the state, including Republicans, have acknowledged another motivation for adding the question to the ballot: to try to increase conservative turnout in today’s Supreme Court race.
Reporting from Washington
The White House’s firing of a career federal prosecutor last week was one in a series of Trump administration moves that have undermined the post-Watergate separation between the White House and the Justice Department — and spread fears about political interference in ongoing criminal cases.
A White House official told Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Schleifer, based in Los Angeles, in an email Friday that he was being terminated. The email came from Saurabh Sharma of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, two sources said.
The office handles roughly 4,000 political appointees within the executive branch, but it isn’t involved in hiring career employees.
Presidents appoint the 93 U.S. attorneys who serve as top federal prosecutors in jurisdictions around the country, but not the thousands of career prosecutors, known as assistant U.S. attorneys.
This afternoon, a small group of federal workers staked out the Senate basement to talk to senators about federal workforce cuts. In a striking interaction, a fired HHS worker, Mack Schroeder, approached Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., who told him he “deserved” to be fired because he seemed like a “clown.” The interaction was captured in a video Schroeder posted on Instagram.
In the video, Schroeder can be heard saying: “Hi, I was a worker at HHS. I was fired illegally on Feb. 14th. There are many people who are not getting social service programs, especially people with disabilities. Are you going to do anything to stop what’s happening?”
“Uh, you probably deserved it,” said Banks. Schroeder asked Banks why the senators thought he deserved to be fired. Banks replied, “Because you seem like a clown.”
Schroeder told NBC News that Banks’s reaction was “really alarming and off-putting.”
Reached for comment, Banks responded with a two-word statement: “Truth hurts.”
Reporting from Washington
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., placed a hold today on the nomination of Ed Martin, the “stop the steal” organizer and advocate for Jan. 6 defendants whom Trump nominated to be Washington, D.C.’s chief federal prosecutor on a permanent basis.
Trump named Martin, a Trump loyalist, as the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia on Inauguration Day, and Martin quickly used the power of his office in a highly political fashion: launching investigations into prominent Democrats and demoting federal prosecutors who supervised the prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom Martin himself represented.
“In every way he can, Ed Martin has demolished the firewalls between the White House and his own office within the Department of Justice,” Schiff said in a statement. “Confirming him to serve permanently in the role he has already abused in his interim capacity would cross the prosecutorial Rubicon that every single Senator would come to regret and that would threaten the rights of Americans from all walks of life.”
Placing a hold on a nominee prevents unanimous consent to proceed with votes on the Senate floor. The majority party can still schedule a roll call vote for the nominee, though that eats up more floor time.
Now that Republicans are projected to win both House special elections today, the House Republican majority will be at 220-213 once the two new lawmakers are sworn in.
That means Republicans can afford to lose three Republicans and still pass legislation along party lines, assuming every sitting member votes.
Patronis and Fine will head to Congress when Republicans are trying to piece together a sweeping budget proposal to tackle Trump’s top priorities, including extending his 2017 tax cuts.
There are two remaining vacant seats in the House, both previously held by Democrats in districts the party is expected to hold in special elections. While the special election to replace the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona is in September, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, hasn’t scheduled a special election to replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris praised Booker for his 25-hour speech, which broke the record for the longest remarks on the Senate floor.
“The true measure of a leader is not based on who you beat down but on who you lift up. For over 24 hours, my friend @CoryBooker stood on the floor of the Senate and lifted up the voices of the American people harmed by the current administration,” Harris wrote on X.
“We must continue to fight for the best of who we are as Americans. Thank you, Cory, for your leadership,” she added.
When Booker took the floor last night, he said he intended to disrupt “the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.”
Booker spoke to reporters about his motivation and how he felt after speaking on the Senate floor for 25 hours and 8 minutes, including some of the strategies he used to keep from leaving the floor for things like bathroom breaks.
NBC News has projected Republican candidate Jimmy Patronis will win the House seat in Florida’s 1st Congressional District. He won’t win the district by as much as former Rep. Matt Gaetz did in November.
With 97% of the votes in, Patronis leads with 57% of the vote and 96,087 ballots, with Democratic candidate Gay Valimont trailing with 42% and 71,146 votes.
In 2024, Gaetz won the district with 66% and 274,108 votes.
It’s a pattern similar to Republican Rep.-elect Randy Fine’s results in Florida’s 6th District, marking a regression for the GOP candidates, as Patronis lags upward of 10 points behind Gaetz in some counties.
NBC News’ Steve Kornacki looks at the numbers in the special congressional election in Florida, where Republicans are projected to win both House seats but where Democrats may be showing some gains compared with previous elections.
Tonight’s win for Fine, in a district Trump carried by 30 points in November, shows the limits of political gravity — that is, just how much a political party can overperform in a low-turnout special election.
Republicans were sweating this seat because Fine was on pace to win it by a far smaller margin than Trump did last year, and all indications appear that Fine is running well behind Trump. But the reason it never became a five-alarm fire was that there’s a difference between a significant Democratic overperformance and the kind of bottom-falling-out situation that would have been needed to flip the seat.
The only times we’ve seen a special election flip in a seat this safe were in 2017 and 2018, when Alabama Democrat Doug Jones won a Senate race in a state Trump had just won by 28 points, and, a few months later, Pennsylvania Democrat Conor Lamb won a House district Trump had carried by 20 points. But both Democrats were aided both by scandals engulfing the GOP and major differences in candidate quality, dynamics that helped them win by a hair.
Democratic candidates have overperformed Trump in special elections before, and double-digit improvements aren’t out of the realm of possibility. But you typically need a political earthquake to flip a seat like Fine’s, and one didn’t materialize tonight.
Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow joined Trump in the Oval Office today.
The University of Florida alum took a photo with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — a fellow Gator. Rubio’s son plays on the school’s football team as a running back.
Tebow, his wife, Demi-Leigh Tebow, and Rubio were photographed doing the university’s “gator chomp” as they stood behind Trump. The photo was posted to Trump adviser Margo Martin’s X account.
Trump hosted musician Kid Rock in the Oval Office yesterday for an executive order signing ceremony.
In his first email to staff members, obtained by NBC News, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino told colleagues that he “didn’t take this job to be a partisan political figure” and that he plans to set “aside any personal politics.”
He also lauded the FBI, an agency he spent the last several years excoriating as a far-right podcaster spreading and promoting conspiracy theories.
“What you do is incredibly important and has real life-and-death consequences,” he wrote. “That can be tough and feel like a lot of pressure. In those moments, remember that you work for the FBI. Those three letters mean something. It’s an incredible privilege to be here — take it from the new guy.”
It was a striking turnabout from a few months ago, when the FBI appealed to the public for information about whoever placed pipe bombs at the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committees the night before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021. Bongino accused the FBI on his podcast of lying about the case, calling it an “inside job” and insisting the bureau knows who placed the bombs.
“Folks, this guy was an insider,” he said on his podcast. “This was an inside job. And it is the biggest scandal in FBI history.”
Bongino holds the No. 2 position at the FBI — a post that until this year was always held by an experienced career FBI leader. Many FBI agents — and the FBI Agents Association — have expressed deep displeasure with the departure from tradition, given that it means two people with no bureau experience are now running the place.
Bongino, who had been a Secret service agent, sought to address those concerns.
“I realize I’m new to the FBI,” he wrote. “There are benefits to coming here with a fresh set of eyes and a new perspective on the way we do things. But I recognize there are also some downsides to being the new guy. Working with the FBI in my previous roles has made me familiar with a lot of the Bureau’s terminology and its mission set, but I’m still up against a steep learning curve. So, I’m going to rely on you.”
He ended the message — addressing a workforce at an institution he once called “irredeemably corrupt” — by saying, “It’s an honor to serve with you.”
With its proximity to the Gulf and status as Trump’s best-performing district in Florida in the 2024 election, you might think the real estate market in Florida’s 1st Congressional District would be a hotbed for advertising “Gulf of America” frontage.
But in a survey of 599 Zillow listings for condos/townhomes in the district that have popped up in the past month, 245 mention proximity to the Gulf or Gulf views as a selling point. And only 5% refer to it as the Gulf of America, with the majority (69%) mentioning the Gulf generically and 26% referring to it as the Gulf of Mexico.
Polls just closed in the 1st District at 8 p.m. ET.
An overhead announcement came on at the White House this evening, declaring: “You have a dinner lid until 8:47.”
A “lid” is a term the White House press office uses to signal to reporters that there will be no more news until the lid is lifted. The final lid of the day also means reporters covering the White House are free to go home, since the president isn’t expected to have any more public activities.
Confused groans could be heard from the press hallway today as reporters stared down the prospect of an unexpected late night at work. A radio pool reporter joked that the announcement nearly gave her a heart attack.
Less than a minute later, a second overhead announcement followed: “April Fools!”
The White House then officially issued a lid for the day, but not before it wished everyone a “Happy Liberation Day eve!”
Trump has declared April 2 as “Liberation Day,” when he’s expected to impose a tariff plan that he says will help equalize the United States with its trading partners.
With 81% of the votes reported in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, NBC News has projected the race for Fine, the GOP nominee. But his strong lead isn’t as strong as the previous incumbent got in 2024.
Take a look at a few counties where all the votes are in. Fine holds 58% of the vote in Florida’s Lake County, but in November, Waltz carried that slice of the district with 68%.
In Flagler County, Fine has 57% of the vote with 22,218 votes, with Weil trailing at 42% with 16,529 votes. Waltz led in that part of the district last year with 66% of the vote and 51,079 ballots.
If that pattern holds across the district, Fine will run about 10 points behind Waltz’s 2024 levels, while Weil will improve by about 10 points.
Republican state Sen. Randy Fine has prevailed in a special congressional election in Florida today, NBC News projects, though the race is shaping up to be closer than November’s results in the deeply Republican district.
Fine was leading Democrat Josh Weil 54%-46% when the NBC News Decision Desk called the race with 73% of the expected vote in.
The 6th District race was giving some Republicans heartburn, with Weil vastly outraising Fine and Fine slow to launch TV ads. Trump carried the district, which includes Daytona Beach, by 30 points in November, but outside Republican groups hit the airwaves in the final days as the race appeared to be competitive.
Trump himself also engaged to help turn out his supporters, as Democrats looked to leverage lower turnout in a special election and energy among the party’s grassroots to oppose him. Trump issued multiple Truth Social posts and held two tele-town halls last week for Fine and state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, the Republican in the 1st District special election, in the Panhandle, to replace former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz. Polls close in the 1st District at 8 p.m. ET.
Sen. Cory Booker set the record for the longest speech in Senate history this evening in marathon remarks that began last night and tore into what he called the Trump administration’s “grave and urgent” threat to the country.
Booker, D-N.J., surpassed the previous record of 24 hours and 18 minutes by Sen. Strom Thurmond, D-S.C., set in 1957. And he’s still going.
His remarks went viral — the live feed of the speech on Booker’s TikTok account had more than 220 million likes by tonight, and users were posting fan edits.
“Twelve hours now I’m standing, and I’m still going strong because this president is wrong, and he’s violating principles that we hold dear and principles in this document that are so clear and plain,” Booker said around 7 a.m., holding up a copy of the Constitution.
Trump announced today that his administration had reached an agreement with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, one of the law firms to come into the administration’s crosshairs.
The firm will take a series of actions in accordance with the agreement, Trump said on Truth Social, including providing $100 million in pro bono legal representation to causes Trump and the firm “both support” relating to assisting veterans and other public servants, such as law enforcement; “ensuring fairness in our Justice System”; and combating antisemitism.
In addition, it will “not engage” diversity, equity and inclusion policies in its hiring practices and will not deny representation to clients “because of the personal political views of individual lawyers,” Trump said.
Former second gentleman Doug Emhoff is a partner at the firm.
The Trump administration has reached similar agreements with other prominent law firms, including Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps.
“Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP proactively reached out to President Trump and his Administration, offering their decisive commitment to ending the Weaponization of the Justice System and the Legal Profession,” the White House said in a statement included in Trump’s post.
A statement Trump attributed in his post to the firm’s chairman, Thomas Cerabino, said, “The Firm looks forward to having a constructive relationship with the Trump Administration, and remains committed to serving the needs of our clients, our employees, and the communities of which we are a part.”
Musk said in a Fox News interview this afternoon that an unnamed person who he alleged was responsible for stealing more than 400,000 Social Security numbers would be arrested “hopefully this week.”
“When I see that terrible fraud has happened, I’m like, why haven’t we arrested someone already?” Musk said, adding that an arrest was forthcoming.
Aked in a tele-rally last night in support of conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel about Attorney General Pam Bondi’s prosecuting fraud in the Social Security system, Musk said, “I believe someone is going to be arrested tomorrow.”
The Justice Department has not publicly announced any such investigation or arrest.
Musk has advanced a series of claims about Social Security fraud to promote cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency. Responding to a question yesterday about where he anticipated he would find the most fraud, he said: “It’s going to be a contest between the IRS, Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, but I could be proven wrong. But that’s probably where, where it’s going to be.”
U.S. ally Japan is pushing hard for an exemption from 25% U.S. auto tariffs set to take effect Thursday, its prime minister said.
Automobiles are Japan’s top export to the U.S., according to customs data. Companies such as Toyota, the world’s top-selling automaker and one of the top-selling brands in the U.S., could be especially vulnerable, CNBC reported, even though it has production facilities across the U.S.
“Japan is the largest investor in the U.S. In light of this, we will continue to strongly urge the U.S. to exempt our nation,” Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters in Tokyo today.
Ishiba added that his government was examining the tariff’s potential impact on domestic industries and employment and would “take all necessary measures” to protect the Japanese economy.
Trump will meet with Vice President JD Vance and other advisers tomorrow to discuss an offer for TikTok as a deadline nears to keep the social media app running in the U.S, two people familiar with the plans tell NBC News.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and national security adviser Michael Waltz are also expected to participate in the Oval Office meeting, one of the sources said.
The scheduled meeting was first reported by CBS News. White House spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for additional details.
TikTok’s fate in the U.S. has been in doubt since last year, when then-President Joe Biden signed bipartisan legislation that forced the app’s Chinese-based owner, ByteDance, to sell the app to a non-Chinese buyer or face a nationwide ban. No such deal came to fruition, and Trump extended the deadline via an executive order on his first day in office, effectively giving TikTok until Saturday to find a solution that would keep it online. Trump also tapped Vance and Waltz to shepherd a deal.
Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has postponed a speech scheduled for Thursday in Washington, D.C., to remain in her home state as it sustains a series of severe storms.
“She must postpone the speech to remain in Michigan, coordinating the state’s emergency response efforts after northern Michigan has faced extreme ice storms. With additional severe weather on the way, she is focused on assisting recovery efforts and providing resources,” Whitmer’s office said in a statement today.
The speech, which Whitmer’s office said will be rescheduled, was expected to focus on bipartisan strategies for shared manufacturing, supply chain and national defense issues. Whitmer was also expected to sit down with former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson following her remarks.
At 4:20 p.m., Booker’s marathon speech overtook Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose 2013 filibuster of the Affordable Care Act lasted 21 hours and 19 minutes. Cruz responded to the news by tweeting an image of Homer Simpson crying.
Booker now has the fourth-longest Senate floor speech in history.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke today, a day before the Trump administration is set to expand sweeping tariffs.
“The leaders had a productive call, discussing the importance of building upon the strong trading and investment relationship between the two countries, to benefit Canadians and Mexicans alike,” according to Carney’s office.
The statement added, “With challenging times ahead, Prime Minister Carney and President Sheinbaum emphasized the importance of safeguarding North American competitiveness while respecting the sovereignty of each nation. Prime Minister Carney also highlighted his plan to fight unjustified trade actions against Canada, protect Canadian workers’ businesses, and build Canada’s economy, including through increased trade between Canada and Mexico.”
The Trump administration first imposed the tariffs on Canada and Mexico earlier this month and issued exemptions for goods that comply with the North American trade deal. Those exemptions expire tomorrow.
Asked whether Trump plans to extend those exemptions, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the daily briefing that she didn’t want to get ahead of Trump’s announcement tomorrow.
“Look, I will let the president speak on the specifics of the tariffs tomorrow,” she said.
Senate HELP Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., and ranking member Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have invited Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to testify before the committee on the “reorganization of HHS.”
The hearing, scheduled for April 10, comes as the administration has started to carry out mass layoffs across the department.
Cassidy, who publicly struggled with RFK’s nomination, said that in order to get his support, RFK committed to appear before the HELP committee on a quarterly basis if requested. RFK made several other commitments to Cassidy to secure his vote, including committing to “an unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship” between them.
WASHINGTON — A band of Republican lawmakers brought the House floor to a halt today over a bitter dispute with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and conservatives in their own party over a plan to allow remote voting for lawmakers who become parents.
A procedural rule vote to advance the House GOP’s package of bills for the week failed 206-222, with nine Republicans bucking GOP leadership and voting with all 213 Democrats. The failed vote means, for now, those pieces of legislation cannot move forward for a final vote.
Shortly after the vote, congressional leaders said that they were sending lawmakers home for the week and would bring them back Monday.
First lady Melania Trump spoke this afternoon at the secretary of state’s 2025 International Women of Courage Award ceremony, highlighting a theme this year of building strength through love.
“Today, we celebrate courage, a strength that is based in love,” Trump said. “This truth is illustrated to our honorees who prove that love can inspire extraordinary valor, even with the face of vulnerability.”
Their remarkable stories are “a testament to the power of love in practice for family, community and our world,” she said.
Melania Trump struck a personal note at the start of her speech, saying she has relied on the “power of love” to “exhibit bravery in the face of unforeseen circumstances” in her own life, but did not go into details.
The speech marked a rare public appearance for the first lady, who has not been in the national spotlight much since her husband’s return to the Oval Office in January. Her remarks this afternoon follow her tradition during the president’s first term of speaking at the annual award ceremony.
The International Women of Courage Award, launched in 2007 by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, seeks to recognize women across the world who have advanced global human rights and protections for women and girls. This year’s recipients include women who have championed women’s rights causes in Burkina Faso, Israel, Papua New Guinea, Romania, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Yemen and the Philippines.
One Health Department worker spoke with us outside its offices in Rockville, Maryland, amid the layoffs happening today. This staffer — who’s still employed at HHS — did not want to share her name or show her face on camera.
The staffer waited in line for an hour and a half to get into the office this morning with staff who were made to go through magnetometers and increased security. She confirmed that workers found out at the door that they had been fired because the notices came early in the morning.
“So if you’ve already started out to work, you wouldn’t have seen it,” she said. “Or if you didn’t have a work computer with you, you wouldn’t have known until you actually got through the line. And then when you got through the line, if your PIV card didn’t work, then you knew that you were RIFed. So that was your notification.”
She described a lack of clarity in the process for those who had lost their jobs.
“You have to do the offboarding process, and you have to do a whole lot of things there. And we’re like, who do we go to? We don’t know who to go to. There are no instructions of what’s going to happen,” she said.
At least six federal agencies are offering workers a new “deferred resignation” opportunity in the latest attempt by the Trump administration to slash the size of the U.S. government.
Employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Agriculture Department on Monday night received emails, which were obtained by NBC News, presenting them with the option to resign while staying on paid leave for several months. Department of Transportation employees received a similar notice on Tuesday morning about the program, according to an email obtained by NBC News.
Spokespersons for the General Services Administration and the Department of Energy told NBC News that the deferred resignation program was opening up to its eligible employees as well, and the Defense Department said its civilian workforce received a similar offer Friday.
A staff member for Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., was arrested yesterday after carrying a pistol on Capitol grounds without a license, U.S. Capitol Police alleged in a statement.
The employee, Kevin Batts, is listed on the website LegiStorm as a special assistant for Booker in his Newark office.
The Capitol Police said in the statement that a member of Congress led Batts around security in the Hart Senate Office Building yesterday afternoon, so he was not screened. The police agency and Booker’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about who that member of Congress was.
After entering the Capitol, Batts, a retired law enforcement officer, later told police officers outside the Senate gallery that he was armed, and he was arrested for carrying a pistol without a license, the Capitol Police statement said.
“All weapons are prohibited from Capitol Grounds, even if you are a retired law enforcement officer, or have a permit to carry in another state or the District of Columbia,” the statement said.
NOTUS was first to report the news of the aide’s arrest.
Jeff Giertz, a spokesperson for Booker, said the senator’s office “employs a retired Newark police detective as a New Jersey-based driver who often accompanies him to events. We are working to better understand the circumstances around this.”
China, Japan and South Korea will jointly respond to U.S. tariffs, Chinese state media said, though Tokyo and Seoul pushed back against the assertion.
Japan and South Korea are looking to import semiconductor raw materials from China, while China may purchase chip products from the two U.S. allies, Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account tied to the state-run broadcaster CCTV, said yesterday in a post on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
The three countries also agreed to strengthen supply chain cooperation and discuss export controls, it said.
The South Korean Trade Ministry said the report was “somewhat exaggerated,” while the Japanese trade minister said there was no such discussion, Reuters reported.
China, Japan and South Korea, which have often been at odds over a number of issues, held their first economic dialogue in five years Sunday in Seoul as they brace for additional tariffs from the U.S., with which they all have strong trade relationships.
In a statement after that meeting, the three countries reaffirmed that “trilateral efforts in the economic and trade sectors are essential for fostering the prosperity and stability of the regional and global economy.”
Separately, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Russia’s RIA state news agency in an interview published today that increased U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods were unfounded and “will cause serious damage not only to the global market and trade order, but also to the reputation of the States themselves,” Reuters reported.
Trump still plans to impose auto-related tariffs this week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at today’s daily briefing.
Leavitt made the comment after she was asked if those tariffs would still take effect April 3. “Yes, they will,” she said. She added that April 2 would “go down as one of the most important days in modern American history” as the White House is set to impose reciprocal tariffs.
“Those days of America, beginning tomorrow, being ripped off are over,” she said. “The president’s historic action tomorrow will improve American competitiveness in every area of industry, reduce our massive trade deficits and ultimately protect our economic and national security.”
Leavitt added, “If you make your product in America, you will pay no tariffs.”
The Trump administration is planning to slap sweeping tariffs on a wide range of goods tomorrow, and the U.S. will begin collecting them Thursday.
Trump and the White House have already said that they would impose 25% tariffs on all foreign-made autos and parts even if the vehicles are manufactured in the U.S.
Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, whose 1991 film “JFK” portrayed President John F. Kennedy’s assassination as the work of a shadowy government conspiracy, is set to testify to Congress today about thousands of newly released government documents surrounding the killing.
Scholars say the files that Trump ordered to be released showed nothing undercutting the conclusion that a lone gunman killed Kennedy. Many documents were previously released but contained newly removed redactions, including Social Security numbers, angering people whose personal information was disclosed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said this morning there is a ‘constitutional path’ for Trump to seek a third presidential term, but acknowledged it would require an amendment to the Constitution.
“I just told everybody to read the Constitution, there’s a constitutional path,” Johnson told NBC News. “You have to amend the Constitution to do it, and that’s a high bar.”
Johnson added that while he and Trump have “joked about it,” he believes Trump “recognizes the constitutional limitations.”
The speaker’s comments come days after Trump told NBC News that he is “not joking” about the possibility of seeking a third term, which the Constitution prohibits, and claimed that there are “methods” for doing so.
Democratic officials in 23 states and Washington, D.C., sued the Trump administration over its decision to “abruptly and arbitrarily” terminate $11 billion in federal funds for Covid and other public health projects.
“This funding provides essential support for a wide range of urgent public health needs such as identifying, tracking, and addressing infectious diseases; ensuring access to immunizations; fortifying emergency preparedness; providing mental health and substance abuse services; and modernizing critical public health infrastructure,” the suit read.
The states claimed that it was illegal to cut the funding, and “without these federal funds, the modernized systems face risks including delays in care and in reporting and identifying outbreaks, which could exacerbate the spread of disease and puts at risk California’s preparedness for future pandemics.”
Trump urged his supporters in a series of Truth Social posts to vote for his preferred candidates in today’s elections in Wisconsin and Florida.
In the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, Trump boosted conservative candidate Brad Schimel, the former state attorney general, writing that Schimel is an “America First Patriot.” Trump also encouraged Wisconsin voters to support a ballot measure that would enshrine the state’s voter ID law into the state Constitution.
Trump urged his supporters in Florida to head the polls in the 1st and 6th Congressional Districts, which are hosting special elections to replace former GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, who is now Trump’s national security adviser. Trump easily won both districts in November, but the races are expected to be decided by closer margins given lower turnout and Democratic energy.
“Jimmy has been a wonderful friend to me, and to MAGA,” Trump wrote of Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, the GOP candidate in the 1st District.
Trump also boosted GOP state Sen. Randy Fine in the 6th District, writing that Fine “has been a tremendous Voice for MAGA.”
Plaintiffs challenging Trump’s unprecedented invocation of a wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members to a prison in El Salvador without due process have urged the Supreme Court not to grant the government’s emergency request to allow the deportations to resume.
In a new filing, lawyers for the deportees, who the administration alleges are gang members, highlighted the impact of any decision to grant Trump almost unfettered power to immediately deport people the government has associated with the Tren de Aragua gang.
Lower courts ruled against the government.
“The implications of the government’s interpretation and execution of the AEA are staggering,” the lawyers wrote. If the court were to rule for the government, it would “allow the government to immediately begin whisking away anyone else it unilaterally declares to be a member of a criminal gang to a brutal foreign prison,” they added.
The court could act on the Trump request as soon as this week.
The Agriculture Department is giving employees until next week to decide whether to participate in the administration’s so-called deferred resignation program, according to two current USDA staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
USDA employees were sent an email last night titled “Deferred Resignation Program 2.0,” which says they must make a decision by April 8, the staff members said.
A federal judge ended a temporary pause in the program in February, at which point about 75,000 federal employees had accepted the White House’s buyout offers, according to the Office of Personnel Management. That number was less than the administration had expected and lower than the annual attrition rate for federal workers in fiscal year 2023.
The Senate Finance Committee is expected to vote today to advance Frank Bisignano’s nomination to be commissioner of the Social Security Administration to the full Senate.
The committee could advance the nomination during its 10 a.m. ET business meeting, but if the panel doesn’t have a quorum, members will vote this afternoon off the floor.
Democrats grilled Bisignano at his confirmation hearing last week about his plans for the agency, whether he agrees with Elon Musk’s attacks on the program and on their concerns that benefits could be cut.
Musk and other senior members of the Trump administration have been critical of the program. Earlier this month, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said “fraudsters” would have a problem with a missing Social Security check, but not his mother-in-law.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will visit Capitol Hill this afternoon for a meet-and-greet session with House Republicans, according to Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., chair of the House GOP Conference, as Trump seeks to implement new tariffs and quickly pass his policy agenda.
Bessent’s timely visit, first reported by NBC News, is the latest in a string of meetings between House Republicans and key Trump administration officials called the “Meet the Cabinet” series, which McClain recently started orchestrating on Capitol Hill. In her leadership position, McClain is in charge of the House GOP’s messaging arm, as well as member services.
The United States government accidentally deported a man to El Salvador because of an “administrative error,” landing him in a notorious mega-jail and leaving him stuck there in legal limbo, according to legal papers filed yesterday.
Kilmar Arbrego Garcia came to the U.S. in 2011 from El Salvador and is a legal resident protected by a 2019 court order that prevented him from being sent back to his home country.
The conviction of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, which bars her from holding public office for five years, is “a very big deal,” Trump said.
Le Pen, leader of the National Rally party and one of the best-known figures in far-right European politics, was found guilty in Paris yesterday of embezzling European Union funds and sentenced to four years in prison. She had been considered a front-runner in France’s 2027 presidential election, campaigning in part on anti-immigration and other policies that have drawn comparisons to Trump.
“That’s a big deal. That’s a very big deal,” Trump said from the Oval Office yesterday evening. “I know all about it, and a lot of people thought she wasn’t going to be convicted of anything.”
“But she was banned for running for five years, and she’s the leading candidate. That sounds like this country, that sounds very much like this country,” Trump continued, in an apparent reference to the multiple legal cases he faced before returning to office.
Le Pen’s lawyer said she would appeal the verdict, though she will remain ineligible for office in the meantime.
Layoffs began widely this morning at the Department of Health and Human Services as the agency sets out to cut some 10,000 full-time jobs as the Trump administration works to drastically shrink the size of the federal government.
The “reduction in force” plan, announced last Thursday and led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, aims to shrink the health department’s workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 across several of its agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
As morning alarms roused people on the East Coast for their work days, Sen. Cory Booker still hadn’t returned home from the night before. Instead, he was delivering an hourslong overnight speech on the Senate floor, which was ongoing 12 hours later this morning.
Booker showed no signs of slowing down after 7 a.m., speaking with animated gestures as he slammed the Trump administration.
Reporting from Mainz, Germany
The European Union has a “strong plan” to retaliate against U.S. tariffs if necessary, the E.U. chief warned, as Trump is poised to impose a 25% auto tariff in addition to reciprocal tariffs on countries around the world.
The 27-member bloc is willing to negotiate but is also prepared to protect its interests, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said today in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
“We do not necessarily want to retaliate, but we have a strong plan to retaliate if necessary,” she said.
Von der Leyen said she understood American complaints that “others have taken advantage of the rules.”
“I agree. We also suffer from it. So let us work on it,” she said. “But tariffs across the board make things worse, not better.”
While Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race is officially nonpartisan, Democrats and Republicans have both picked sides and are pouring fortunes into their efforts. As the votes are tallied tonight, the ability to claim political momentum amid the upheaval of President Donald Trump’s second term will be on the line.
What is being tested, though, is not so much whether large numbers of voters have changed their minds in the five months since the presidential election. When it comes to Trump himself, Wisconsin is an especially polarized state, with three straight presidential elections decided by less than 1 point. More likely, the outcome hinges on whether the pro-Trump side has become more engaged in an election like this than it has been up to this point.
The first major elections of President Donald Trump’s second term will take place today as voters head to the polls in Wisconsin, a perennial battleground, and in Trump-friendly territory in Florida.
Tens of millions of dollars have poured into Wisconsin ahead of today’s state Supreme Court race in a contest that could have huge national implications. It’s the first major statewide contest in a battleground since the 2024 election — and it’s happening in the state where Trump had his narrowest margin of victory in November.
